Old Dogs, New Tricks

Since language classes start back up on Monday, I'm trying to get caught up on some blogging before I'm back to the old grind with not much free time.

Don and I have been learning a lot of new things and I was thinking about how different life is for us in a lot of ways now and one is simply that we are not just "car" people anymore. In fact, for most of the time, we often don't use the car on loan to us, but we use our feet, the metro, and just recently the bus. I'd never even been in a subway but just a few times in my life and now it is almost a daily occurrence.

Here I am at the ticket/recharge machines in our neighborhood metro stop. It is a an 8 minute walk from our apartment at a brisk pace. We use a card that we recharge for a set rate for the month and can ride the metro and certain buses as many times as we want. I know the different lines (they go by colors - green, yellow, blue and red) and I can read the maps and see where the exits take you. The first few times we rode the metro were like an unreal experience, but now, it is just another part of a normal day. I do have to admit that I still prefer to use the English screen on the machine to the Portuguese one, but some day...

More Pictures of the Castle

Inside and Out

On the post from Sept. 18, I mentioned about how they can't take down the outside wall of a building when they are remodeling or renovating. The law says that they have to keep the original face (well, it can be restored but not changed) so that they keep the traditional look of the city.

In this picture you can see how they do it, propping up the outside wall while tearing out all the insides of the building. You can't tell by the picture but there is noting on the inside of that building. We will have to go back sometime and see how the work is progressing.

Sometimes I feel like that - that God is propping me up on the outside (or I would be flat on my face on the sidewalk) while He is working on the inside of me. This winter has been difficult with a lot of sickness and a lot of long dark, wet days.  Just this last week or so,  I'm beginning to feel a little stronger with a lifting of my spirit and a lightening of a load. Psalm 94:18 says, "When I said, 'My foot is slipping," your love, O Lord, supported me."

I think the next time I see one of these scaffolds holding up a building, I will be thinking of God's support.

Cookies Made With Yellow Sugar Just Don't Taste The Same

Dons favorite cookie is chocolate chip. I have not baked chocolate chip cookies since we've been here (in 4 days it will have been 6 months). Well, I had not baked them for quite some time before that as our daughter, Anna, is a much better baker than I am and we would just wait for her to come home for a visit if we really wanted some.

We did happen to put several bags of chocolate and butterscotch chips in our crate, as they don't sell our kind of chips here (and I haven't found any small chips yet). I guess that I have been holding out for a while before opening a bag...

Last night I felt like baking and went in to make up a batch but as I was getting all the ingredients out, I realized that things might be a little different with what I have to work with here.

The butter is wonderful, creamy, flavorful, from the Azores. The baking soda - about the same as ours but packaged differently, and flour - ditto, but only sold in much smaller packages. But brown sugar is so expensive and it only comes in tiny little packages, so I've just been buying the yellow sugar. It is natural cane and I think the translation would be "yellow sanded" sugar. It is like a cross between brown sugar and white sugar.

So last night I used more of the yellow and less of the white than the recipe called for and even though the cookie dough tasted nice, somehow the cookies didn't turn out the same or taste the same as the traditional Toll House cookie from home would.

Still it was a nice "familiar" but not exactly the "same" treat. Maybe it was just that Anna wasn't here to bake them. I did have one "same" with these cookies - I overcooked the last batch just like I always did back home.

Anna's Christmas Visit ( a little late in posting )

Wow, it is already February and I am just now finding time to post these pictures.

We are so glad that Anna was able to come and visit and looking through the pictures makes me miss her even more!